antique arms, armour & militaria - Thomas Del Mar Ltd

356
A COMPOSITE HARQUEBUSIER’S ARMOUR, CIRCA 1630-
40, LONDON OR GREENWICH,
comprising pot with hemispherical skull formed in two
pieces joined medially along a low comb, its brow fitted
with a broad obtusely-pointed pivoted peak supporting on
its underside a triple-barred face-guard riveted through
later washers, and its nape, with a matching one-piece
neck-guard embossed to simulate four lames
(articulation-points and left border showing some
damage), one-piece breastplate of late peascod form
flanged outwards at its lower edge and fitted at either
side of the chest with a pierced stud and swivel- hook for
the attachment of a shoulder-strap, the swivel-hook
riveted over a fretted rosette washer, and matching onepiece
backplate with flanged neck-opening and lower
edge, the latter fitted at either side with a pair of later
pierced studs, the remainder fitted with incomplete scaled
shoulder-straps (only the first scale of each original), a
pair of rivets for the attachment of inner shoulder-straps,
and a waist-belt (replaced, its buckle detached), and long
gauntlet for the left hand formed of a medially-ridged
two-piece tubular cuff shaped to the point of the elbow
and fitted at its lower end with both an inner and an outer
wrist-plate, the former projecting as a semi-circular lobe
over the base of the thumb, and the latter bearing three
metacarpal-plates, the last having a shaped projection at
its inner end for the attachment of a missing thumbdefence
and a shaped knuckle-plate, the main edges of
the armour decorated with plain inward turns,
accompanied on the peak and neck-guard of the pot by
recessed borders and elsewhere by single incised lines
repeated at all subsidiary edges, its surfaces originally
blackened (now extensively rusted), stand not included.
This armour is of notably high quality. The absence of
London marks makes it likely that it was made in the
royal armour workshops at Greenwich. Following an
official investigation of criticisms brought against it in
1630, the workshop lost its privilege of working only for
the King and those who bore his personal warrant. Its
output thereafter is thought to have included pikemens’
and harquebusiers’ armours of a quality appropriate for
wear by officers and select units. Our cuirass resembles
one from Littlecote House, Wiltshire, now in the Royal
Armouries Museum, Leeds, Inv. No. III. 1957-8, which is
356
thought to have belonged to Col. Alexander Popham, as
well as others on loan to that museum from Scrivelsby
Court, Lincolnshire, seat of the Dymoke family, hereditary
royal champions. Comparison can also be made with the
cuirass of the fine Greenwich harquebusier’s armour in
the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London, Inv. No. II.
92, made for the King Charles II about 1635 (Richardson
2004, pp. 11-12). The basal thumb-defence of the gauntlet
forming part of the present lot shows the influence of
earlier Greenwich examples. The heavy cuirass of the
armour is for a man of notable size.
£3500-4500
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